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Canada Joins the Open Government Partnership

I’m in New York today for the launch of the Open Government Partnership and it looks as the Canada is now a signatory (or at least has signed a letter of intent).

No commitments are outlined, but I will link to them when they are posted.

The Open Government Partnership was launched by the White House and the State Department earlier this year with 8 founding countries. The goal is to get a coalition of governments around the world to commit to implementing a series of initiatives to improve government transparency, effectiveness and accountability. You can read more here.

For those interested, the launch of the event will be livestreamed here. If you’re at the event, I’ll be hosting the lunch on “How to identify and prioritize core classes of information for public disclosure.”

5 thoughts on “Canada Joins the Open Government Partnership”

David, nothing, absolutely zilch on what Canada will do for the OGP? That’s mighty untransparent, and it seems in keeping with Harper tradition. I’ll be following Brazil’s progress (Observing Brazil .com), so let’s keep cross-referencing. GM

Yes, there is nothing there. This is, I believe, because Canada signed on at the last minute and so didn’t have time to prepare anything. This is, however, good news for us, as we can now look at the commitments other countries have made and insist that Canada do the same.

Just to clarify: for the official launch on Sept. 20, only the 8 founding countries were required to present their commitments and action plans. New pledging countries, like Canada, have to present their commitments and action plans in March 2012 in Brazil (next OGP Conference)

since you mentioned Brazil, I can say that Brazilian government ministries wanted to include so many commitments that some had to be cut and others trimmed so they could fit on the 8-page limit for the Action Plan!

Let’s hope people in the Canadian government are as enthusiastic about this as those in Brazil have been.